Election Day Surprises for Egyptian Women

By Laura Sheahen

"There are so many problems in our village even men can't solve. Could a woman? Of course not."

It was only one of many criticisms leveled at three women from rural Egypt when they announced they were running for local office. "When I walked in my village, they pointed at me and laughed," says Fatheya Rezk Abdel-Rahman, a 57-year-old mother of 10 who decided to put her name on the ballot.

In the dusty, impoverished villages that border the Nile, millions of Egyptians try to eke out a living, growing wheat or sugarcane and hauling reeds on donkeys. Their village councils work to address the hunger, illiteracy and lack of health care residents often face.

Until now, the councils in rural areas were made up of men. Egyptian women rarely voted, much less took part in their government, even though village women knew their community's problems well and had creative ideas to solve them. For many women, lack of money for ID cards, social pressure not to get involved or bribes to elect a certain candidate tainted the voting process.

Learning to Lead

That began to change when Catholic Relief Services, with a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, started a democracy program for 15,000 Egyptian women. Previous CRS programs had helped the women obtain the government IDs they needed to vote by paying the nominal fee that many couldn't afford. The new program taught women—most of whom had successfully built home-based businesses using small loans from CRS—about ballots and local councils, and told them how they could improve their villages as political leaders. At packed awareness sessions, women sat with their babies, listening to the ways they could help shape their communities.

Special women emerged during the sessions—leaders with the energy and knowledge to confront the health care, sanitation and education shortfalls of their villages. At the sessions, thousands of women voted for peers they thought could make a difference. Forty-eight women were selected and received training on how to run for local office.

Then came the hard part: getting their names on the ballot. The women faced threats and bureaucratic obstacles—some prompted by social disapproval, some by political maneuvering. Many women had in-laws or other family members who discouraged them, saying they were acting inappropriately and bringing shame on the family. One candidate's husband fought with her and cut up her election paperwork.

Faced with pressure like this, dozens of women were forced to drop out of the race. But against the odds, five women got their names on the ballot—including Fatheya.

Addressing Basic Needs

The candidates developed platforms around the basic needs of villagers, like access to government-subsidized bread. Since the worldwide food price crisis began, riots have broken out in Egypt because affordable bread has run short or been diverted.

Huwaida, a 27-year-old single woman, campaigned on the bread issue and said she'd also help remedy the trash removal problems in her village. A 34-year-old widow named Hoda wanted to tackle illiteracy in her community. Having returned to school herself at age 28, sitting in a class with teenagers and hearing derisive remarks from her teachers, Hoda was well-known in her village for valuing education. Each woman picked a symbol—like a duck or an umbrella—to appear on the ballot, so that voters unable to read could still identify them.

Though Fatheya, Hoda and Huwaida had to cope with angry neighbors, most of their close relatives were supportive. Before she ran for office, Hoda's sons—17, 14 and 10—took care of household chores so their mother could attend the awareness sessions. Even though it is unusual for Egyptian boys to do so, "they cooked and washed clothes so I could go," says Hoda. Huwaida's father and uncles championed her, and Fatheya's grown children and young grandchildren were proud of her.

Hard Work Pays Off

In the month before election day, the candidates worked hard to spread their messages. "I gathered my neighbors, relatives and friends to talk about the problems in our village and how I can solve them," says Huwaida. The day before the election, Fatheya says, "I went house to house, telling villagers the election was tomorrow. I finished at midnight."

Fatheya's hard work paid off. On election day, over 9,000 people in a village of about 12,000 cast their vote for her. Late in the day, Hoda and Huwaida also heard the good news: They had won.

After celebrating their victories, the women jumped in to tackle issues like converting unused village buildings into clinics, recruiting local women as schoolteachers and fixing bad roads.

Fatheya went to the bakers who received low-cost flour from the government to bake bread for the poor, but who often sold their products elsewhere at higher prices than allowed. In the end, Fatheya succeeded in making sure the low-cost bread was distributed properly.

Along with the bread issue, Huwaida addressed her village's sanitation problem: "One trash truck is not enough, and sometimes it doesn't come on time." Huwaida requested a second vehicle and is pushing for both to be punctual. She also plans to build a secondary school for boys and girls.

The three winners share an unswerving determination. "I was scared at first," says Huwaida, "but I wanted to prove myself, and to solve others' problems and mine as well. If you face obstacles, you must continue."

That determination changed attitudes. In Fatheya's case, a male member of the council frowned on her candidacy at first. But watching her campaign, win and work to improve their village, "he now respects me," Fatheya says. "I was determined to stay the course."

Laura Sheahen is CRS' regional information officer for Europe and the Middle East. She is based in Cairo.